The ’80s are large and in charge in Plants vs Zombies 2. Pull up your leg-warmers and tease your hair.

What’s New in Version 3.9.1
Get into the groove with Neon Mixtape Tour, Side A, and mix it up on the dance floor with Party DJ! You’ll chill out with sweet slow jams or speed things up with righteous rhythms, and prepare your plants as Punk Zombie, Glitter Zombie, and MC Zom-B move to the beat. Also included:

With a name like “Lost City,” you can count on staying around for a while. So, unsurprisingly, there’s more Lost City exploration going on with the latest update for Plants vs Zombies 2.

What’s New in Version 3.7.1
Keep exploring in Lost City Part 2! Unfold more gold with Gold Leaf in 16 new levels and survive an airborne Zomboss encounter, complete with booby traps. The full update includes:

Plants vs Zombies 2 recently updated with a new level package: “Lost City Part 1.” It contains 16 new levels, a bunch of new zombie species, and good times underground.

What’s New in Version 3.6.2
Uncover Lost City Part 1! Journey deep into the jungle and discover 16 gilded levels. Explore new features like sun-producing Gold Tiles and get in the game even faster. The full update includes:

It’s hard to believe, but the original Plants vs. Zombies launched in 2009, quickly securing its place as a classic “flower defense” game. To celebrate, you can get free stuff in PvZ 2. From Touch Arcade:

To celebrate Cinco de Mayo and the franchise’s birthday, EA Mobile is featuring a “10 Day Birthdayz” event in Plants vs. Zombies 2 that will offer plenty of collectibles and gems. Players will be able to work to unlock guaranteed gems with every win as well as get five limited time collectible costumes for their plants: Kernel-pult’s blowout, cupcakes for Snapdragon’s head, bow ties for Bonk Choy, and party hats for Cabbage-pult and Lightning Reed. All players will also receive a free World key as part of the birthday celebration. If you’re still enjoying killing zombies, go celebrate and harvest those rewards.

Popular tower defense title Plants vs Zombies 2 has a new pack of 16 levels that take place in the icy “Frostbite Caves.” And Peggle Blast has a new face: Buddy the Turtle, who’s capable of igniting rocket-powered peg explosions.

If any other game on the planet came close to matching the sheer juggernaut power of Angry Birds, it’s Plants vs. Zombies. Yet, while Angry Birds has unleashed a seemingly endless number of sequels, PopCap Games has seen fit to simply release PvZ on every platform available and focus on adding tons of new content over the years. Thankfully, the wait for an actual sequel is finally over.

Slyly subtitled, “It’s About Time”, Plants vs. Zombies 2 isn’t exactly a revolution in anti-zombie gardening tactics. The game largely plays identically to the original and is a firm proponent of the “if it ain’t broke…” philosophy of design. Admittedly, I’m not complaining. PvZ2 has all the great qualities that made the original so much fun and it’s sure to be a classic.

There are a couple significant changes in the overall set-up. First and foremost, the game is completely free to play, with the option for in-game purchases. As worried as we were about inflicting the dreaded “freemium” model on one of our favorite games, PopCap clearly gave the implementation a lot of thought. Players can get through the whole game with virtually every plant without dropping a dime.

Hasty players can spend real cash to instantly unlock plants and all levels, or get in-game currency. We never felt cheated by not buying anything and it’s a model we hope more games will adopt. Beyond that, the most obvious change is the move away from the suburbs and back into time. The game takes place across three time zones—Ancient Egypt, the old west, and the time of pirates. Each world is presented with a world map (another major change) and has around 50 or so levels each, including branching paths and bonus levels.

Admittedly, the game currently lacks the sheer amount of variety and levels of the original, but we have no doubt that PopCap will be hard at work making the game even beefier than it already is. There are some great new plants and power-ups this time around. Chain lightning, freeze bomb, and other new plants await zombie hunters. Plant food power-ups are a new addition as well. Feeding a plant this special mix results in a temporary boost of power, such as a massive chain gun attack from the pea shooter or a sudden explosion of sun drops from a sunflower.

There are also new player-controlled super moves, such as the ability to squish or throw zombies with finger gestures. These moves cost in-game currency and are expensive, but are so overpowered that they can cause a complete turnaround in a losing battle. Such special moves are fun, if a bit cheap, but hardly necessary in normal play.

Finally and as expected, the game has undergone a graphics overhaul. The great sense of humor is heightened by better animation and more detailed, yet still cartoonish graphics. The soundtrack is instantly familiar to fans of course, and the whole package is terrifically presented.

PopCap has created a fine sequel and an impressive model for free games to follow. They certainly haven’t reinvented the wheel here, but there’s plenty of levels included (and more on the way), tons of plants and enemies, and loads of fun to be had. Better yet, it’s likely that only impatient gamers will feel much need to spend real money.

Plants Vs. Zombies 2 is currently only available in New Zealand and Australia, but it will creep over to the rest of the world in due course. When we first heard the game was going free-to-play, we were nervous the freemium aspects of the game would ruin the fun. We didn’t need to worry. The new pricing model has made it accessible to all gamers, and it hasn’t curbed the fun of the gameplay one bit.

This gorgeous sequel brings players through a smattering of environments based in different time periods. You’ll ward off the undead in ancient Egypt, the Old West, and on pirate-infested seas. The game is packed with new plants, new enemies, and new power-ups. It even has gesture-based super moves that deal ridiculous amounts of damage to the zombie walkers. The game has tons of content already, and more is presumably in the works. All that, and you don’t have to spend a dime.

Our runner-up for Game of the Month is Deus Ex: The Fall. This is a full-fledged prequel to last year’s Deus Ex: Human Revolution, so expect stealthy action, a meaty story, deep character customization, and multiple ways to get through levels. Square Enix has also done a terrific job of paring down the complex controls so they work on the touchscreen. Any way you slice it, this game’s a winner.

Connect with us

Latest Recommended Games

The fine folks at Milkbag games have released Sidewords. A fun little diversion of a word game that is the devil child of crosswords and scrabble. For each level in the game the grid must be completed to win the level — this means that each letter at the top and side must be used. And not just the top or side, but each word must be made up of letters from the top and side to create a grid. It’s a pain, but in the right kind of way. Even the simplest of the levels can be a head scratcher until you get used to the game. Well worth the $3 as a diversion while we wait for Milkbag to finally release Snow Siege.

We’d like to thank our sponsor for this week, Zap Zap Kindergarten Math.

It’s not always easy to tear your kids away from their tablets and make them do something edifying. Thankfully, Zap Zap Kindergarten Math relieves you of this task by turning mathematics into a fun touchscreen video game. Win win!

Aimed at children 3-6 years old, the app makes math fun by ‘gamifying’ it, turning simple mathematics problems into little challenges so that your pre-schooler can learn and play at the same time.

There are more than two dozen mini-games, split across three categories: Numbers, Shapes and Measurements, and Add and Subtract. According to the developer the difficulty of these puzzles is adaptive too, so kids of any ability can be both encouraged and challenged.

Mini Dayz has launched and it’s a pixelated 2.5D open world that’s as brutal as the desktop version. In this game, the player is dumped on shore with nothing. They must scavenge around for food, water, and weapons while avoiding attack. It’s the kind of game where the goal is to stay alive as long as possible. But that will never be very long. It’s oddly free and seems to only have an ad on the main screen — for now.

Pewter Games has brought their charming point and click adventure The Little Acre to iOS. It’s an amazingly beautiful animated adventure set in a sort of hybrid magical / alien world. A great all ages adventure and very fun.

We’d like to thank our sponsor for this week, The House of Da Vinci by Blue Brain Games. There’s a reason Leonardo Da Vinci is the only renaissance figure who routinely shows up in video games you know. With his remarkable inventiveness and genius for creative problem-solving, Da Vinci was a gamer through and through. He was just born 500 hundred years too soon. Thankfully, there are studios like Blue Brain Games to bring him to life in videogame form. The House of Da Vinci, which comes to us courtesy of a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign, is a puzzler that seeks to channel the artistry and innovation of its title character.

You play as one of Da Vinci’s more promising apprentices, and you have the challenging task of trying to work out where the hell he’s gone. Was he assassinated by the church? Who knows. Has he quietly gone into a retirement? Perhaps. Did he accidentally invent a shrink ray and shrink himself down to the size of an dustmite? Probably not. Da Vinci’s workshop looks beautiful, thanks to some impressive 3D graphics, and the in-game environment is crammed with all the elaborate machines and crazy inventions you’d expect to find in the workplace of a renaissance genius.(more…)

Poly Bridge is out now on iOS, and it’s good to have it! It’s a great game and many seem to agree that it’s the best bridge builder game available. But the iOS versions, so far, is missing the sandbox mode. I would hope that it’s coming soon in an update. If you are all interested in physics puzzlers, grab this one. (Note: the video is for the PC version, I have yet to see a trailer for the mobile version, the developer Dry Cactus isn’t that great at marketing…)

Advertisement

Apple, the Apple logo, Apple Watch, iPad, iPhone, and Apple TV are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. App Store is a service mark of Apple Inc. Other terms may be trademarks of their respective companies.